


Til We're Staring at the Stars and the Rockets

by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Related, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, Reunion Fic, Season/Series 07 Spoilers, adashi, broganes, kind of, not really - Freeform, surprise motherfucker Adam loves you, what-if fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 14:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15462963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee/pseuds/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee
Summary: “No,” Shiro tries to regain his composure, gives it up for lost and just sighs heavily, years of being everything but Just Takashi weighing him down. “This…you…I don’t deserve this.”“That’s why it’s called ‘love’ dumbass,” Adam’s looking at him with nothing but gentleness in his eyes, “Because we don’t deserve it, we get it anyway because someone decided to give it to us. It’s not that complicated.”Shiro learns to just be Takashi Shirogane again. There's a lot of macaroni and cheese involved. Also Adam's there.





	Til We're Staring at the Stars and the Rockets

**Author's Note:**

> Hahaha, I have a whole list of fics I could be working on. But NO, I'm writing a REUNION FIC because I have to get my two cents in before season 7. 
> 
> Idk why this is all about mac n cheese, y'all, I'm still sick and definitely on antibiotics and I have to be at work at I-hate-the-world-o-clock tomorrow morning so...bad life choices time. 
> 
> Anyway, have some fluff and nonsense. This is totally unedited, fair warning.

_"And though the sand may be washed by the sea_   
_And the old will be lost in the new_   
_Well four will not wait for three_   
_For three never waited for two_   
_And though you will not wait for me_   
_I'll wait for you"_

_\- Passenger, "Patient Love"_

NOW

            Shiro’s pretty sure sobbing over a pot of Kraft™ macaroni and cheese is a new personal low. He’d thought nothing could top being kidnapped by actual space aliens, losing his arm (also in space), getting turned into an actual ethereal spirit entity, being CLONED, then having his spirit entity self jammed into the clone’s body like toothpaste that’s already been squeezed out of the tube. But he’s always been an achiever, he supposes.

            Maybe this is his destiny.

            Crying in his pajamas while standing barefoot in the kitchen eating Kraft mac n’ cheese (shaped like dinosaurs because of course he couldn’t get through this moment with any shred of dignity intact) directly out of the pot. 

            King Alfor would be so disappointed in him.

            (Actually, Shiro takes that back, from everything Coran has said about Alfor, he’d probably be eating bottom shelf macaroni and fake cheese right alongside him.)

            So here he is, crying like a baby because of noodles. Gold star, Shirogane, you human disaster.

…

THEN (7 years pre-Voltron)

            Shiro has had some close calls but he’s pretty sure no man could survive this with sanity in tact.

            “What’s…what’s the math with the letters?”

            “You have to be more specific, babe.”

            “The…math…it has letters.” 

            Shiro considers lifting his head off of the textbook he’s faceplanted onto but then he’d have to _read_ the textbook. And considering the way colored spots are dancing in front of his eyes when he closes them…that sounds like a lot of work.

            Adam is poking him in the shoulder now because his boyfriend is _evil._ “It’s not algebra. It’s…the other one.”

            “Geometry?”

            “Is geometry in physics because I don’t think that’s the one I need…”

            “Jesus Christ, I don’t know.”

            “Wrong biblical figure, Takashi. My name is Adam.”

            Shiro giggle-snorts at that because he hasn’t slept more than an hour in the last forty-eight and also he can’t not laugh when Adam jokes in that flat, dry tone. He can’t help it. He’s probably in love or something.

            He’s not sure how he goes from nearly unconscious on top of a heap of finals related materials to sitting bolt-upright but once he’s there he’s too busy being slightly dizzy to care. Some time must have passed because Adam’s either figured out what math he needs or is trying to get his graphing calculator to draw a dick through carefully selected equations again because finals has broken his spirit if not his brain. Either way, his long brown fingers are flying over calculator buttons with a speed that can only come from hard drugs or large quantities of espresso.

            Shiro can’t really contemplate that, though, because his brain has zeroed in on one thought and one thought only.

            “Adam. Baby, babe, love of my life – “ oops, does that count as saying ‘I love you’ the first time, because if so Shiro’s probably the worst boyfriend on the planet, “honey, sweetheart, darling, life of – ”

            “Ha!” Adam has successfully beaten the calculator’s graphing function into submission. It now features an image of what might be a pot leaf or a very rough drawing of a hand flipping someone off. And who says math isn’t applicable in real life? “Sorry, what were you saying?”

            “We need to make macaroni and cheese right now.”

            “Are you high?”

            “ON LIFE.”

            Or on the fumes of complete and utter exhaustion, whatever.

            Adam sighs and rubs his hands over his eyes, shoving his glasses up into his messy hair. “Fine, I’ll make you mac n cheese.”

            “But – “

            “Cooking is no longer a group activity. Not after the microwave.”

            That was kind of fair.

            Adam shoves away from the table and staggers over to the kitchenette in their tiny dorm apartment.  “You still like that horrible Kraft mac n cheese, right?”

            How is this even a question? “It’s the mac n cheesiest,” Shiro says flatly because he’s too damn tired to think of anything clever.

            Adam gives him the forlorn look of a man who misses organic produce or maybe just cheese that isn’t potentially radioactive and probably not even real cheese. “You realize it’s six in the morning, Takashi. We’re officially eating mac n cheese for breakfast.”

            Shiro’s broadly okay with that. Actually, Shiro’s really okay with that. He likes pasta covered in sketchy orange not-cheese. Sue him. Actually, no, don’t sue him, Adam would win that lawsuit, he’s way better at arguing than Shiro is.

            One bowl of bright orange noodles later Shiro sagely (and groggily, carbs plus not forcing his brain to absorb more knowledge for five seconds has made him sleepy) observes, “If I controlled the world…”

            Adam sighs and takes his turn to faceplant into a textbook. Shiro decides to ignore his significant other’s lack of faith.

            “If I controlled the world. We would live on the moon. And it would be made of cheese.”

            “Oh my god, Takashi, get some _sleep_.”

            “And we would eat mac n cheese for breakfast _every day_.”

            “GO TO BED, I BEG YOU.”

…

THEN (1stmonth of Voltron)

            “What do you miss about Earth?” Lance is looking sad again, mournful blue eyes staring off into the middle distance.

            “My dad’s cooking,” Hunk sighs, “And my little sisters’ hugs. And the grocery store down the street. Oh my god, the selections. The options. The things other than food goo!”

            “My mom and dad confusing people on purpose because they both answer to ‘Doctor Holt’,” Pidge admits, wrapping her arms around her knees, “And my brother’s lame jokes.

            The energy in the room dips slightly. Keith, folding his arms and hunching his shoulders the way he always has whenever he’s felt awkward ever since he was a little kid, says, “My bike. And my shack. And my coyote.”

            Which of course sets Lance off, shrieking about “WHAT THE QUIZNACK, MULLET, YOU HAD A COYOTE???  DID YOU WANT TO LOSE YOUR FACE???”

            Featuring Keith getting defensive and yelling statistics about how likely housecats are to eat the faces of their dead owners which – gross, Keith. Shiro is 99% sure _he_ isn’t responsible for the bulk of the macabre factoids rattling around Keith’s brain. That is _all_ Adam, which – yeah, that still aches deep in his bones.

            Coran once asked Shiro, voice soft, fatherly concern creasing the corners of his eyes, if he suffered from phantom pain in his arm. Shiro hadn’t known how to tell him that he’d been suffering from phantom pain since he left earth. Since he’d dismissed Adam’s concern, since he buried a quiet “How important am I to you?” in bluster and bravado and his own selfish wants.

            Allura touches his shoulder lightly and asks, “What do you miss about Earth, Shiro?” as the bickering between Lance and Keith expands outward to encompass Hunk and Pidge against their better judgment.

            Shiro misses warm brown eyes and the flash of teeth in a quicksilver grin. He misses lazy Sunday afternoons and getting their uniforms mixed up and having to re-dress all over again as they speed through Monday mornings. He misses dreamless sleep lying next to a warm body.

            He misses Kraft mac n cheese for breakfast.

            But Allura carries her own phantom limbs, she doesn’t need the weight of his too.

            So he smiles and says, “Macaroni and cheese.”

…

THEN (Four years pre-Voltron)

            “Takashi.”

            “Yeah?” 

            “Why are there half a dozen Tupperware containers full of macaroni and cheese in the staff refrigerator with sticky notes saying ‘SHIRO’S DO NOT TOUCH’?”

            “Probably because they’re my lunch for this week and people shouldn’t touch them”

            Adam isn’t the type to look at you over the rims of his glasses at you when he’s disappointed. He stares straight through the glass like he’s using so much energy trying to process the massive amounts of ridiculous contained in your human form that he couldn’t possibly tilt his chin down to look at you condescendingly.

            Shiro smiles sunnily as Adam sighs and shakes his head at him. “If you didn’t leave your lunch in the staff fridge you wouldn’t have this problem.”

            “That’s what the fridge is for, though. I’m giving it a purpose in life.”

            “And risking people eating your food.”

            “That’s what the labels are for.”

            “To show Keith what to target the next time he breaks into the staff lounge for fun?”

            “Haha. You’re hilarious.”

            Adam smirks at him, “Thanks, sweetie, I know.”

            Shiro rolls his eyes, but after Adam goes back to grading papers, he makes sure to surreptitiously put one of the stick notes on the back of his uniform when he’s not looking.            

…

THEN (1 year into Voltron, en-route to Earth)

            “Hey, Shiro.”

            “What are you doing awake, Hunk?” Shiro asks. The lions are flying convoy-style as they coast through space towards Earth. They decided early on that they needed to establish a ‘daytime’ and ‘nighttime’ in the lions just like they’d had in the castle for their own health and sanity. By the Black Lion’s chronometer they were somewhere around the middle of the ‘night’. Even Keith was asleep in deep in Black, curled up with his space wolf (whom he called ‘Beowulf’ and his mother called ‘Yorak’ and who answered to basically nothing).

            “I just wanted to say…it’s good to have you back.”

            “Thanks, Hunk.” Shiro’s smiling to himself.

            “I know you and me have never been super close or anything. I mean, you all are like my space family. And I care about all of you. Lance’s like my best buddy, and Pidge is like my little sister – but in space, since I have earth little sisters and everything. And Keith’s like…that cousin everybody thinks is all edgy and scary but then you meet their dog and see their action figure collection and hear their lame jokes and you realize they’re basically a softie and everything. And Allura and Coran – I’m totally blabbering. Sorry about that. Anyway, I know we’re not super tight but you’ve always looked out for us and believed in us and done your best for us even when you’re having a hard time. So. Thanks. And I’m glad you’re back.”

            Shiro’s eyes aren’t watering, there’s just…space dust in them. Yeah. Space dust. That’s a thing.

            “Thanks, Hunk. You’re, you’re a really good kid. Guy. Sorry, you’ve all grown up so much. You aren’t kids anymore.  You’re…” he chuckles, “You’re paladins of Voltron. You’re heroes. Defenders of the universe.”

            “I don’t know about that,” Hunk laughs, “I think sometimes it’s easy to forget who we are when the whole universe is going on and on about what we are. I figure I’m just trying to be the best Hunk Garrett I can be. It’s super cheesy, but…”

            “For the record,” Shiro says into the heavy pause, “I think you’re a pretty great Hunk Garrett.”

            “Thanks, Shiro,” Hunk says, like that means something to him. Like it being Shiro who says it means something.

            Shiro never knows how to handle it when people sound like that around him. Like him being the one to say something makes it meaningful somehow. He thinks there’s something to what Hunk says, about trying to be the best version of yourself. Shiro’s been trying to be the best Black Paladin he could be, the best Leader of Voltron he could be, the best Champion he could be, the best Garrison Pilot he could be…he doesn’t think he’s tried to be the best Takashi Shirogane since…since. Since Adam making pancakes and bacon in the kitchen, singing along to the radio while Keith juices the hell out of oranges with all the aggression in his tiny pre-growth-spurt body. Since easy Saturday mornings with Adam shuffling along to an out of date pop song and Keith crushing citrus with his bare hands.

            It’s been a long time since he’s just…tried to be Shiro.

            “No, thank you, Hunk. You gave me some perspective.”

            “No problem, buddy. That’s what space family is for. Oh, by the way – ”

            “Yeah?”

            “Back when we had the castle, after you went missing and we started up the Voltron Coalition, I got some ingredients from other planets and tried to make some earth-type food. I tried to make everyone’s favorites - except Keith’s, he said he liked steak and I wasn’t going to do that to Kaltenecker.”

            Shiro has to chuckle at that.

            “Yeah, so anyway, Allura mentioned you missed mac n’ cheese from Earth. I never got the recipe quite right but it was pretty close. I figured I’d show it off to you when we got you back but…we never got the chance.”

            Shiro’s definitely tearing up. It’s not space dust, it’s honest-to-god sniffles. “Thank you. Really, that means a lot to me. That you and Allura tried. Thank you.”

            Hunk laughs, “Well, she wasn’t the most reliable taste-tester. But hey, she sure was enthusiastic!” 

            That has them both laughing into the night.

…

THEN (four years pre-Voltron)

            Adam doesn’t find out about the sticky note until someone finally has the guts to explain to him why everyone is giggling at his back. His retaliation is swift and uncompromising.

            “Honey, I’m home,” Shiro sighs half-ironically from the doorway. A few sticky notes give up the adhesive ghost and flutter to the ground as he sets his messenger bag down.

            “In the living room!” Keith yells over the sound of Adam absolutely destroying him in…

            “Are you playing Dance, Dance, Revolution?” Shiro asks, half horrified and half intrigued as he sticks his head into the living room to find his boyfriend and his kind of adopted son/brother/protégée flailing around holding video game controllers.     

            “This dumbass made me do it,” Keith grumbles, frowning with the same kind of single-minded intensity he wears in the simulator at the Garrison.

            “I’m totally kicking his ass,” Adam informs him with a sharp-edged grin.

            Shiro sighs, “I assume you two are responsible for this?” he tosses out the handful of sticky notes that people had just handed to him instead of adhering to his body/uniform/messenger bag over the course of the day.

            “That was all his idea,” Keith says flatly.

            “Yeah, Keith was pretty useless with implementation,” Adam observes with savage accuracy, judging by the indignant ‘Hey!’ he receives for his comment from the Keith-sized peanut gallery.

            “If you made more friends you could more effectively prank Shiro, I’m just saying,” Adam points out over Keith’s protests.

            “The only reason to try to make friends,” Keith grumbles and Shiro figures he should probably deal with that later as a responsible adult who cares about his pseudo-sibling’s socio-emotional development. But right now he’s mostly focused on the _ridiculous_ amount of paper he’s covered in.

            “Is this really necessary?” he complains, lifting an arm neither of them can see as they’re more focused on the tiny pixelated figure on the screen than they are on his Suffering™, which…rude.

            More sticky notes detach and flutter to the floor with the gesture, which seems apropos in Shiro’s eyes.

            “You stuck a sticky note saying ‘SHIRO’S DO NOT TOUCH’ to the back of my uniform,” Adam points out blandly, “I was just returning the favor.”

            Shiro isn’t sure spending a whole day being stuck with or handed sticky notes reading ‘IF FOUND, RETURN TO ADAM’ is quite on the same level prank-wise but he’s willing to take his lumps, except… “How the hell did you get the students in on it?”   
            “The McClain kid talks a lot,” Keith grumbles as he trips through another ridiculous pop dance routine.

            “He’s a good kid, and you should copy his study habits, just saying,” Adam dodges a totally off-choreography swipe from Keith’s controller-hand, “But yeah, he kind of knows everyone.”

            Shiro sighs deeply. He knows when he’s lost. “I’m making mac n cheese. Does anyone want some?”

            “Sure!” Keith the lactose intolerant wonder replies while Adam hits pause on the game, completely losing any shred of dignity or composure, shrieking, “STAY OUT OF MY KITCHEN YOU MICROWAVE MURDERER,” and racing after Shiro.

…

THEN (first day of Voltron)

            “Adam kept me alive in that shack.”

            Shiro looks up at Keith. He’s so much taller than he remembers. Rougher, too. His eyes have some of the same hardness they had when they first met, the day Shiro talked to his class and Keith ran away with his car.

            Shiro wants to wrap his little brother in a hug, he wants to apologize over and over again but he can’t choke the words out. He regrets everything that came after…but going to Kerberos? Seeing everything he saw before it all went wrong? He’s not sure he can regret it. He’s not sure he can regret going out on his own terms, with his hands firmly on the controls of a starship pushing into the great beyond.

            He thinks Keith could maybe understand. Hopes he can. Someday, if not now.

            But all that pride and stubbornness lies hand in hand with regret. Regret for what he sacrificed for this fool’s errand. The question that haunted him in the arena. Was it worth it? Was it worth all this?

            “What happened to you?” Shiro asks. He wanted to ask in the cabin, wanted to demand answers, wanted to shake Keith and plead with him and scream in frustration. How the hell did this all go so wrong? How can he live with carrying the burden of so many what-ifs?

            Keith shrugs. He folds his arms the way Adam used to when he was feeling worn-out by other people, the constant press of all the others around them at the Garrison, asking questions, demanding more from them, more broken records, more things to gawk at, more chances to prove that Adam and Shiro weren’t undefeated. Shiro knew the title of ‘top pilots’ weighed heavy on those shoulders sometimes. It hadn’t weighed heavy on his at the time, he’d been all brashness and adventurous spirit and the desire to go fast and take chances and be all he could be and burn out in as glorious a fashion as possible. Adam just wanted to make something good, something lasting, something that meant something. Both personally and professionally he was like that, always looking forward, always looking out.

            Keith’s a lot like Adam sometimes. On the surface he’s all Shiro, all impulse and danger and recklessness. But beneath…there’s something stronger, more stable. Something that can endure.

            In Shiro’s mind, that’s all Adam.

            “I got a little…lost.” Keith admits. “When you disappeared. It hit us hard.”

            Us. The little family they’d cobbled together out of big dreams and taken chances.

            “Some shit went sideways, Iverson crossed a line. Did you know…” Keith clears his throat, “Did you know Adam spent every night after the mission was lost coming up with rescue scenarios? Running the data, planning the perfect operation?”

            No, Shiro hadn’t known that. He shakes his head. He can’t find words right now.

            “Yeah, well, he did and it was good, it was a solid mission plan before…”

            Before what? ‘BEFORE’ WHAT, KEITH?

            “He was put under observation. Demoted. Because the Garrison couldn’t _fire_ him, he knew too much about literally everything, but they declared him ‘unstable’, ‘unfit for duty’ and they…they searched his stuff. They seized his computer.” Keith grinds his teeth, his fists are clenched where they’re tucked against his ribcage, “They turned his mission plan into a _simulation_. A school assignment. And they stuck him in some basement somewhere doing data analysis.”

            Shiro feels cold and hollow now. Numb. Tired in a way that he hasn’t allowed himself to feel in a long, long time.

            “The minute I saw the new sim, I knew. I punched Iverson in his smug, fucking face and I told him to go burn in hell. I was out on my ass the next day.”

            Shiro nods. He knows Iverson too well. And without Shiro or Adam there to advocate for Keith? He’d be gone in an instant.

            “I went back to the cabin my dad built. I was born there, I figured I might as well just…be there. Adam came by the next day. He was there at five in the fucking morning with that shitty goddamn Kraft mac n cheese you eat. He brought me food and like, paper towels and shit I couldn’t get from the desert. He gave me the explosives I used as a diversion to break you out.”

            “You were his little brother too,” Shiro manages to rasp out and Keith’s hand rests heavy on his shoulder. Keith’s standing, Shiro is sitting. He can’t quite remember when he dropped down to sit on the Red Lion’s paw but he did, he’s here now. He doesn’t think his legs could hold him.

            “Yeah, I know,” Keith admits, “I just, figured you should get the whole story.”

            “Thanks, Keith,” Shiro says around the painful lump in his throat.

            They sit together for a long time after that.

…

THEN (post-Earth-landing)

            Shiro must have fallen asleep in the waiting room while they were interviewing Pidge and her family.

            It’s not a waiting room, not really, it’s the goddamn faculty lounge of all places, and he’s fighting back a severe case of déjà vu just being here. But not even the weird out of body experience that comes from visiting a place you left behind years ago that’s barely changed but also completely re-written itself in subtle ways can keep him from sleep when he’s this tired.

            Shiro’s last memory is curling up on one of the unnecessarily pale and modern couches in the lounge area, his height making the whole positioning thing incredibly awkward, while Keith and his mother both assured him that they’d be ‘on guard’ in case anything happened. (Frankly, he’s more afraid Krolia will snap an unsuspecting Garrison flunky in half than he is anyone will sneak up on him and try to kidnap him, but that’s just Shiro.)

            He blinks awake to the slightly itchy sensation of adhesive on his forehead and a piece of paper tickling his nose, which he scrunches in displeasure as he gropes his way toward full consciousness. He feels the offending article off his face as he squirms into a more comfortable semi-upright position. Turning it around he finds a bright orange sticky note covered in bold black writing.

            ‘IF FOUND, RETURN TO ADAM, CONTACT # XXX-XXX-XXXX’

            Shiro blinks, his heart thudding awkwardly in his chest. He glances up, making brief eye contact with Krolia across the lounge. She nods at him, tipping her head over toward…

            There he is.

            Across the coffee table from Shiro. Close enough to touch. Adam. Curled up in a chair that was barely designed for comfortable sitting, let alone sleeping. His knees tucked up against his chest, his soft brown hair falling over his brow in an all to familiar cowlick. He hasn’t even bothered to take his glasses off.

            Shiro is standing and walking toward him in a daze. He’d pinch himself to make sure he was awake expect in none of his dreams of this very moment did he include backache from sleeping on a couch, missing an arm, or Keith’s alien mom subtly trying to wingman him.

            He touches Adam’s shoulder and tries not to cry with how real and solid it is.

            Adam startles awake with a soft noise that has tears filling Shiro’s eyes because apparently sudden resurrection makes you weepy as all hell.

            “Takashi?” Adam blinks up at him, glasses eschew.

            “You said you wouldn’t wait for me,” Shiro says because he’s a big fan of suffering, apparently.

            “I lied,” Adam’s smile is so sad but so sweet and it rips his stupid heart in half.

            “I’m not the same person, it’s been…it’s been years. I’ve done bad things. So many bad things. I fought a war. In space. I’m missing an arm and like…all of my hair pigmentation,” Shiro tries to laugh but it comes out sounding choked, “I don’t know if you’ll still want me.”

            Adam blinks sad brown eyes at him but he’s smiling a tiny sweet smile all the same, “Then we’ll get to know each other again. That’s like the best part of dating or something, right?”

            “Nah, the happily ever after part’s the best, don’t you read any fairytales,” Shiro teases and he’s pretty sure his eyes are leaking.

            “You want to crash in my guest room instead of the couch?” Adam offers, careful, kind, so sure not to push any boundaries.

            Shiro quirks a smile, “Are the rest of the crew invited?”

            “My mom always wanted a houseful of grandkids,” and it’s melancholy and a little sweet and somehow they end up with a hodgepodge pile of air mattresses and couch cushions covering Adam’s living room floor (Adam’s – he’d moved out of the place he shared with Shiro and Keith because there were too many ghosts, too much dead and gone and aching, but there are pictures on the walls, all their memories set to watch over him because Adam can never really let go). The younger paladins plus Matt sleep in a heap on the floor with Romelle and Allura taking up the couches. Krolia and Beowulf/Yorak take the fold out armchair for themselves and Coran somehow manages to rip up a hammock in the breakfast nook. No one bothers to ask where Coran managed to procure a hammock. Some things are best left to space magic.

            Shiro sleeps in the guest room but it feels too big and empty for one person.

…

NOW

            Shiro wakes up to Adam making a mess of the kitchen. The rest of the paladins/space crew are still sacked out on the floor for the most part but Adam is churning out breakfast food like a madman and Shiro’s pretty sure he’s on his fourth cup of coffee.

            “What are you doing?”

            Adam stops mid gesture and turns around. He looks exhausted. Shiro wonders if he even slept or if he spent all night checking on everyone, making sure they were all here, all ok. It’s such an Adam thing to do it makes his heart twist. Keith used to do the same thing in the castle in the early days of Voltron. Checking to make sure everyone was in one piece, everyone was still with him.

            “I wasn’t sure what everyone would want for breakfast,” Adam says, voice flat and uncertain.

            “Anything is fine, you know. We’ve been living on Altean rations for…waaaay longer than we’d like to. You don’t have to kill yourself to be a good host.”

            “No death humor, I’m not over it yet,” Adam says warningly, pointing a spoon his way. A spoon covered in…

            “Is that fake cheese?”

            Adam blinks and retracts the not-so-threatening utensil. “Oh. Yeah. It’s kind of dumb. You said you were,” a gentle, teasing smile and air quotes, “a ‘different person’ and all, but…I figured what the hell?” a quiet, self-conscious chuckle and…

            “Is that Kraft macaroni and cheese?”

            “Yeah? You said you’d make it a breakfast food if you could change the world and all so I thought…”

            And that’s how Shiro ended up here, sobbing like a baby over a pot of macaroni and cheese.

            “I don’t…I don’t know what to do with this.”

            “Ideally you eat it.”

            “No,” Shiro tries to regain his composure, gives it up for lost and just sighs heavily, years of being everything but Just Takashi weighing him down. “This…you…I don’t deserve this.”   
            “That’s why it’s called ‘love’ dumbass,” Adam’s looking at him with nothing but gentleness in his eyes, “Because we don’t deserve it, we get it anyway because someone decided to give it to us. It’s not that complicated.”

            And that’s when Shiro just, gives up. Gives up trying to be responsible and Good and noble. He just…throws his one remaining arm around this incredible, bizarre, extraordinary man, and holds him tight and lets himself be Takashi Shirogane one more time.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Patient Love' by Passenger. Listen to it if you want to get emotional about Adashi with me.


End file.
